Sunil Narine and Anrich Nortje had their bats changed before taking strike as the umpires deemed their bats being too thick to pass through the gauge test, which is being conducted on the field in the ongoing season of the IPL whenever a new batter comes in the middle. Narine, who came to open the batting for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) alongside Quinton de Kock, had his gauge test conducted before crossing the boundary rope on Tuesday against the Punjab Kings. But since his bat didn't pass the measurements, he had to use a different bat.
Similarly Nortje, playing his first game of the season for the Knight Riders, arrived to the crease with his bat but got it changed after the substitution Rahmanullah Gurbaz ran in with a few different options and one of them did go through the test and the South African quick was given a go-ahead by umpire Saidarshan.
However, Nortje didn't even face a ball as he came into the middle at the fall of Vaibhav Arora's wicket on the last ball of the 15th over and Andre Russell, who took strike in the next over, was cleaned up by Marco Jansen on the first ball as KKR were dismissed for 95, chasing 112 as they suffered their fourth loss of the season.
According to the IPL rules, "the width of the bat face should not exceed 10.79cm, the thickness of the blade shouldn't be more than 6.7cm, and the width of the edge of the bat cannot be more than 4cm. The length of the bat should not exceed 96.4cm," the IPL guidelines state."
Rajasthan Royals batter Nitish Rana didn't have any problem with the rule as he was asked about the same ahead of his side's game against the Delhi Capitals. "It is fair enough, we don't have a say in that, it is not controllable. The bats are made by the company that sponsors us. But if umpires want to check it for their satisfaction, we don't have a problem."